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Caeneus

John Theoph Kakridis

The Classical Review / Volume 61 / Issue 3-4 / December 1947, pp 77 - 80

DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00097493, Published online: 27 October 2009

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John Theoph Kakridis (1947). Caeneus. The Classical Review, 61, pp 77-80 doi:10.1017/
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 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 77
CAENEUS
VOLUME XIII of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri brought grass and the lamb ate the
brought to light a fragment of the grass'). 1
Genealogies of the early historian Acusi- The unaffectedness of Acusilaus' nar-
laus of Argos concerning the Lapith rative is evident also in the anticipated
king Caeneus: change of the hero's sex (iroiei airov
KmvTJl &€ TTJL 'EXdrov jdayerai IJoaaSemv avhpa instead of avrr)v: ' she transforms
firara—ov yap fy aoriji is ipov iral&as rfKfv ovr' him into a man') 2 and even more in the
*( eKeimv OVT' ef aAAov ovSevos—iroiet avrov Hoaa- change of the subject at the end, which
84<ov avSpa arpanov, laxvv ixovra \t/eyl<m\v r&v
avBpuimav r&v Tore, Kal ore ns avrov KevrotT) m- 5 is not expressed: K&Ketvot (viz. oi Kev-
hrjptM i) xaXxaiif yXiaK€ro ytaXiora xprifjjarwv. Kal ravpoi) neTprjv iirmdeim oij/xa /cai airoOvrj-
yiywrax paaiXevs oSros Aamflitov KOI rots Kevrav- ox« (viz. Kawevs). The hero's presence
pois iroXefiteaKf. iirtira anjaas aKovWiov h> is so vivid in the mind of the author that
ayoprji $cov tKfXfvev apidfiflv. 6eot]m h" OVK ijc[i> he does not feel the need of mentioning
Io
avoxerov, Kai] Ztvs ISwv avrov ravra iroiouvradirei-
Xet Kal f<j>op/j.di rodr Kevravpovs, Kaicetvoi avrov
him. Similarly in popular narratives
KaraKowrovoai Sp$u>v Kara, yijs (cai avu)8cv •nerp/qv the subject and other syntactical mem-
CTTiTi&eioi a^fia, KaX atro6virjtaK€i, bers are very often omitted: -qfepa TO
Ox. Pap. 1611 fr. 1 = F.Gr.Hist. 2 F 22 = Diels- yiarpo Kal rov irepiKaXeoa Kal TOV nepi-
Kranz, Vors. 9. 73 F 40 a 22 2 our^i Deubner, irovrjdr)Kc KCU oaKaTevrqKe ( ' I called t h e
auTcui (coll. OUTOV v. 3) Jacoby, o^Tots Pap. es physician and begged him and he at-
(sive npos) ipov dubitanter Maas, tirtpov Diehl, tended to him [viz. the physician to the
Upov Pap. 8/9 suppl. Grenfell, Boll 10 dv-
axerov supplevi, apforov Boll, •fjb'v Grenfell 12
patient] and he was crippled [viz. the
Spdim Allen (coll. Pind. fr. 167, Agath. d. m. patient]').J The same 'egocentric'*
Erytkr. 7), opetov Pap. manner is to be found in children's
Before examining the content of this language as well as in Homer.s
text, one of the oldest in Greek prose, Let us come now to the meaning of
let us consider its form. The narrative the Caeneus legend. A girl was in love
is clear, simple, and unadorned. The with a great god, but either because she
sentences are nearly all co-ordinate, was afraid to face the pains of maternity
connected mostly by the conjunction or because she felt strong virile qualities
Kal, twice by 8e, and once by en-emx. in herself, she wished to renounce her
Anyone reading this text, written 2,400 sex and in return for her love asked him
years ago, immediately notes its affinity to transform her into a man of invincible
to modern popular tales, not only in strength, and her wish was fulfilled. No
regard to its content, but also in regard enemy spear could pierce Caeneus now;
to the form of the narrative. I quote the but, as very often happens with mortals
beginning of a modern Greek popular who are highly honoured by the gods,
t a l e : ".Eta y/coipo KC eva £,afj.dvi rjrav juxa the Lapith king Karaire^iav \x4yav oXfiov
ypiA Kal Sev etx* waiSi *cai Tnjyaive VU^TO OVK iSwdaOr]. At the height of his
fiepa OTTJV €KK\r)<na Kal irapaKaXovoe rr]v strength and glory he set up his invin-
IJavata1 Tlavatraa fiov, 80s jJ.ov eva cible javelin in the agora and obliged bis
muSt in' as etvai KC dpvaKi. Aomov rj subjects to worship it as a god. But
Ilavaia rfjv i\wrrjdr)Kc Kal TTJV eScoKe Zeus was on the alert; such hybris could
rapv&Ki yiA naiSaKi. Kdde fiepa irqyaive ij not be forgiven. However, the gift of
ypia OTO /Jowo Kal e<f>epve xoprapaKi Kal invulnerability protected the guilty king
erpoyye rapvaKi ('Once upon a time
there was an old woman and she had 1 AaaypoApla V (1915), 450.
no children and she went every day to 2
Jacoby, correcting the papyrus in 1.1, replaces
the church and prayed to the Blessed ewTots by the masculine atmS, which can hardly be
accepted when one has in mind the whole sentence:
Virgin: "Our Lady, give me a child ov yap Jjv avrijt is ipov wotSas TCK£V.
even though it be a lamb!" Our Lady 3
ATTOfivTj^ovev/iaTa orpanjyov Ia>. MaKpvyidwrj,
felt pity for her and gave her a lamb 85-
for a child; every day the,old woman 4
I am indebted to W . Havers, Handbuch der
used to go up the mountain and erkldrenden Syntax (1931) .168, for this term.
i Z 8 f f
 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
from every wound, and what the gods in every hero—Achilles, Admetus,3
give to a man can never be revoked. Priam, Danaus, Tithonus,* and the rest
Therefore the deserved punishment —believed they had found an old, for-
which awaited Caeneus had to come gotten god. But, when a theory has
without the shedding of his blood. The taken root amongst the authorities, it
Centaurs, stimulated by Zeus, hit him is difficult to eradicate it, even when
on the head with gigantic pine-trunks— new elements have been found which
as other sources completing the narra- cannot be reconciled with it. The newly
tive of Acusilaus attest1—and drove discovered fragment of Acusilaus, which
him down deep into the ground; thus had not come to light at the time when
wedged, overwhelmed under a heavy Rohde and Berthold constructed their
rock, he was unable either to move or theory, expressly states that Caeneus
to breathe and soon expired. ' dies' (a.7Todv^aK€t). On the basis of this
Modern mythologists have tried to evidence, one might have expected that
unravel the problem of the original their view about the immortality of
nature of Caeneus by considering his Caeneus would have been reconsidered.
invulnerability in relation to his unique Nevertheless F. Jacoby, in commenting
end. As far as I know, it was E. Rqhde on this text (F.Gr.Hist. i. 379), instead
who first (Psyche? i. 115) found a rela- of trusting the explicit witness of the
tion between Caeneus and Amphiaraus, historian and rejecting the theory of the
Trophonius, and other infernal gods, who mythologists, unhesitatingly prefers to
in course of time were reduced to heroes, remain faithful to the modern theory,
and were thought to dwell under the abandoning what Acusilaus says and
earth alive, although men never ceased characterizing it as ' strange'.
to worship them. So Caeneus, it is sug- It is clear, however, that this does not
gested, was originally a god and after- help us to remove the contradiction
wards was reduced to a hero, when between the old witness and the new
cleaving the earth he reached its centre theories. My opinion is that, if one
without dying: opdcp TTOSI, testifies Pin-wishes to prove the theory that Caeneus
dar—i.e., in Rohde's opinion, erect, was a god, one must use other argu-
living, not lying down dead or mortally ments than this legend. No source at-
wounded. Supplementing this theory, tests that the life of the hero continued
0. Berthold2 suggested that the legend under the earth; indeed the words of
of the hammering of Caeneus into the the witnesses which refer to this story
ground was an alnov, invented at a do not permit us to imply it. Besides
later date, when the Greeks, though Acusilaus there is also Apollonius Rho-
they had forgotten the infernal nature dius, whose clear language on the sub-
of the god Caeneus, still thought that he ject should not have been misunder-
continued to live an immortal life under stood (i. 59):
the surface of the earth and therefore Kmvea yap t,u>6v mp in icXetovmv aotSot
wished to give an explanation of how he Kevravpoimv oXtaBai.
came to be there.
I hope we are free from the mono- I think that the meaning given to the
mania of the earlier mythologists, who phrase t,u)6v SXeadai, that he disappeared
1 under the earth without dying, is mis-
Pind. fr. 167, Apoll. Rhod. i. 63 f.; compare taken. The strong oxymoron—note the
Ovid, Metatn. xii. 507 f.; Apollod. Epit. i. 22, Schol.
A on //. A 264. The scene of the Lapith king already particle nep—accentuates the fact of his
half buried in the ground is also represented in death, in spite of the fact that he has
vases, e.g. on the black-figured crater of Ergotimus been driven into the earth alive, because
and Clitius, as well as on temple-friezes, that of he was invulnerable, ftppqicros, aico/i-
the temple of Athena at Sunium, that of the temple
of Apollo at Phigalea, that of the so-called Theseum irros iSvaero veiadi. ya«js, as Apollonius
at Athens, etc. See C. Robert, Griech. Heldensagen
3
1. 10, n. 6. See A. Lesky, 'Alkestis, der Mythus und das
2
0. Berthold, 'Die Unverwundbarkeit in Sage Drama', Sitzb. Wien. Ak. 1925, 3f.
und Aberglauben der Griechen', R.G.V.V. ii. 1, * See my paper Ti6a>v6s, Wien. Studien, xlviii,
p. 17 f. 1930, 25 f.
 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 79
says in the verse following. But that he human necessity of inventing a final
died as soon as he had been wedged into defeat for the mentally or physically
the ground is self-evident. indomitable hero.
Nor have the fragmentary verses of Homer, using and completing the
Pindar (fr. 167) the meaning which older epic tradition, had presented the
Rohde gave them: figure of Ajax as the bravest hero of all
o Si ^Xoipats iX&raun Turret;
those who sailed to Troy excepting
woSl yfiv Achilles. Stimulated by this Homeric
figure, ti\e imagination of the later
' Caeneus, struck by newly felled pines, Greeks created an invulnerable Ajax
standing straight on his feet, split the whom no arms made of iron could
ground and disappeared beneath it'. wound. Nevertheless Ajax at the end
Pindar as well as Apollonius emphasizes met a death like that of Caeneus. Ac-
the strangeness of the death of Caeneus, cording to an old, nearly forgotten story,
who perished without failing and with- wholly independent of the well-known
out staggering. tradition of his suicide, the invulnerable
Caeneus was never a god; in the hero was killed by the Trojans, who
whole of ancient tradition there is not buried him under a heap of mud which
one piece of evidence that Caeneus was they threw at h i m : Xpqofuos ihod-q Tpaiol
ever worshipped as a god in any part of TMJAOV Kara rov Atavros flaXeZv oi8rjpu>
Greece, a fact which Rohde himself feels yap OVK fy rptaros' KOX OVTCJ reXevr^.1
bound to confess. If we only free our- The attempt of modern mythologists to
selves from the desire to discover a deep base themselves on this story in order
theological meaning ih a story which is to prove that Ajax too was an infernal
only a simple invention of popular god, again in spite of the explicit evi-
imagination, it is not difficult to explain dence (owrto reAevra), deserves no more
the strange death of the hero—a piece refutation after what we have said
of imagination constructed with the about Caeneus.
object of solving a problem which at all Better known is the other variant
times attracted the popular mind. about the invulnerability of Ajax: on
All peoples are brought up to believe the day of his birth Heracles wrapped
in the heroes of their past, men who him up in the lion's skin he was wearing,
have been above the common people and prayed to the gods to render the
spiritually, mentally, and physically. child invulnerable like the skin; and the
These persons were granted exceptional gods granted his prayer. But a part of
gifts by the gods or the fates, super- the child's body had inadvertently re-
human force, invulnerability, even im- mained uncovered; it was at this part
mortality, and so were enabled to per- that later his own sword would pierce
form their marvellous exploits. Now h i m : tfyqal Se irepl rov Atavros AtaxvXos
the question arises: how could these on KOU T O $Uf>os eKa/jLTrreTO ov8a/j/fj h>Si-
strong, indomitable, immortal men have 86VTOS TOV jflowros rfj o<f>ayfi, TO£OV a>s ns
been defeated and died? For it is just evreivtov, irplv 8rj TIS, (fyrjal, irapovoa Sett-
their supernatural abilities which stimu- fituv e8ei£ev avr<p Kara TTOIOV (lepos Sci
late the popular imagination and force Xprjo-aodai rfj ocftayf}.2 Achilles t o o w a s
it to complete the stories by inventing rendered invulnerable by his mother,
an end which presents these heroes de- who dipped him in the waters of Styx;
feated and dead in spite of their strength only his ankle, by which Thetis held him,
and endurance. Similarly heroes who remained dry; there the arrow of Paris
excel in mental abilities are often pre- would fatally wound him.3
sented in popular narratives as somehow The same problem was faced by the
or other ridiculed. The abundance of modern Greek people and was given a
stories about the Devil, the most cun-
1
ning creature in the world, in which he Hypoth. of Sophocles' Ajax; Sophron, fr. 32.
2
finally appears as deceived by a simple Schol. on Soph. Ajax, 833.
peasant or a woman, is due to the same 3 Stat. Achill. i. 269 f.; Serv. Am. vi. 57. See
C. Robert, Griech. Heldensagen, p. 1187, n. 4.
8o THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
different solution. The ancient Greeks a woman to an invincible man. But as
were immortal; how then did they die ? in the end he had to be defeated,
I give here two variations of a legend, especially in view of his impious insult
the first from Thessaly, the second from to the gods, popular imagination in-
Macedonia.1 vented the unique manner of his death
A. The ancient Greeks were tall like under the hammer-blows of the Cen-
the highest poplars; when they fell taurs. Over the spot where he was
down, they died, because they could not wedged there will hereafter stand a rock
get up; therefore their most solemn in- as a reminder of the story of the Lapith
vocation was: 'God keep me from king, who though he was unconquerable,
stumbling!' nevertheless was conquered in the end.
B. (A peasant narrates that once This orjiia will also remind the way-
upon a time he found a skeleton of an farers of a truth, often forgotten by
ancient Greek.) The skull was as large mortals, that the gifts of the gods
as a petrol-tin, the legs were two yards should be rewarded dyavals afwiflaZs and
long each. The ancients were like giants that men should not venture to raise
and they were not afraid of death; themselves up to the position of the
for they never died. Only when they gods and behave ungratefully to them,
stumbled and fell down with their faces who condescended to grant to mortals
to the ground, they gradually gave up what the gods only have the right to
the ghost. Therefore their most solemn enjoy, i.e. divine food, superhuman
invocation was: 'God keep me from strength, prescience, immortality, etc.
stumbling!' For this was the only The deep theological meaning which
mishap they were afraid of. the mythologists suggested as existing
In the first variant no mention is in the legend of Caeneus has been proved
made of the immortality of the ancient unfounded. The story is only a varia-
Greeks, but it is evident that it is im- tion of a fairly popular motive, abso-
plied; on the other hand, the second lutely free from any mythological
variation omits to emphasize explicitly symbolism. Such a story the unaffected
that the Greeks, once fallen on the style of the narration of Acusilaus suits
ground, could not get up, though this perfectly. Nevertheless, who can deny
may be inferred. Thus the two varia- that this naive product of the people
tions complete each other. has a meaning—a meaning which is
To return to the legend of Caeneus, no less deep than that which the wis-
our opinion is that its primary kernel dom of the mythologists wished to give
is the transformation of Caeneus from to it?
' The first published by N. Politis, IapaUaas JOHN THEOPH. KAKRIDIS.
i. 52, n. 89; the second recorded by M. Andronikos. University of Salonika.

EUNOMIA
IN his recent Aspects of the Ancient lead me, however, to conclusions which
World (Oxford, 1946) Dr. Victor Ehren- are partly different from his, partly com-
berg has republished his essay of 1930 plementary to them. Summarily, this
entitled Eunomia with a few alterations seems to be one of the words which, like
and notes. Since he wrote, Sparta's dpxn and 81/07, n a v e retained their primi-
' Eunomia ' has been examined afresh tive, and especially their verbal, sense,
by Andrewes (C.Q. xxxii, 1938, pp. 89 ff.), much later than is commonly supposed.
Wade-Gery (C.Q. xxxviii, 1944, pp. 1 ff.), ' Eunomia ' had clearly an accepted
and Gomme (Hist. Comrn. on Thuc. meaning when Hesiod (Th. 901 ff.)
i. 128ff.); but on the wider meaning made her one of the Horai, daughters
nothing significant has appeared. Care- of Zeus and Themis, and sister of Dike
ful re-reading of Ehrenberg's essay and and Eirene, and of the Moirai. What
study of the passages which he quotes this meaning was we can discover,